Formal and Informal Rules

The future manager/owner of the IBMPC computer conferencing facility
recognized, soon after the opening of IBMPC in 1981, that the
future of the facility depended on the support of IBM management and
the existence and enforcement of formal rules that would:

tell participants what could and could not be submitted to the
facility.

provide a basis for erasing appends that did not satisfy the
rules.

demonstrate management control of the facility.

Hence creation of an initial set of formal rules
for IBMPC became the first priority of Dave Chess when Dr. Waldbaum assumed
ownership of IBMPC in early December, 1981. The first document containing such
rules, IBMPC MEMO, was written by Chess under Waldbaum's guidance and was distributed
just a few days after they assumed control of the facility. IBMPC MEMO was principally
intended as a user's guide to the facility. It stated what the IBMPC computer
conferencing facility was for (sharing information about the use of IBM Personal
Computers), how one could access information on the facility, and how one could
contribute information to the facility. The rules stated in the document were
few:

The following rules are suggested for material which is appropriate
to the IBMPC disk. They will be enforced by the owner of the disk (hopefully
not at all).

Material must be related to the IBM PC, either:

things that run on the PC

things that run on 370 to produce stuff for the PC

information or requests for information about the PC

Material must be public domain or IBM internal use only (not
confidential).

Material should not have patent or copyright problems.

Material must not cause system problems at Yorktown.

Material must be well documented and reasonably bug free.

The size of things should be constrained. (send a MEMO that
points to large objects)

Look at other available commands and do not duplicate function
with minor changes. Work with the owner of the command you would like
to extend.

Only one of these rules, the last, deals in any way with the nature of
interaction on IBMPC, directing users to work together. The rest
of the rules are concerned primarily with protecting IBM's property,
ensuring there are no legal exposures,
insuring usability, constraining the amount of
mainframe disk space the facility consumed, and insuring that
participants understood what the facility was to be used for. None of
these rules originate in the experience of computer conferencing.
They are based, rather, on a variety of existing rules that were
already documented in various IBM documents, including the managers
manual, VNET rules, and security guidelines.

These rules represent, in many ways, a starting point in the process of defining
IBMPC as a computer conferencing facility. Indeed, one notes without surprise
that only the first three of these rules survive today in any form (and they
haven't survived intact). The ability to directly interact through the facility
was introduced at the same time that IBMPC MEMO was. Hence the relative paucity
of interaction rules reflects the simple fact that no one knew what rules for
interaction ought to exist. This rather brief emumeration of IBMPC's first formal
rules is hardly the sum of the rules governing interaction on IBMPC, however.

Relevant company rules

As IBM employees, participants were accustomed to operating within the
"IBM culture", an unstated set of norms which still reflects, to some
extent, Thomas J. Watson's injunctions against drinking, casual dress,
and rude behavior. They were expected to behave within the
constraints of IBM's three basic beliefs and
Business Conduct Guidelines, which set high standards for employee
behavior in many areas, starting with "respect for the individual"
(IBM, 1988, p. 10). Finally, they had to contend with the preferences
of the broad consensus of other IBM employees.

The behavior of IBMPC participants (with its presumed basis in the
pre-existing rules and cultural norms of IBM) seems to set IBMPC
apart from other computer conferencing facilities. This seems
especially true in the wake of Keisler, Seigel, and McGuire's (1984)
description of flaming and other computer conferencing behavior.
These descriptions painted computer conferencing as a medium where
unrestrained language was the norm. Early appenders of SENSITIV FORUM
expressed IBMPC's contrasting behavioral norms clearly:

The opening append of the forum notes "that IBMPC and other
VM-based computer conferencing facilities are remarkably controlled.
We have generally avoided offensive language and managed by and large,
to keep the discussions targeted on things that have value, in one way
or another, to the company."

the third append agrees, noting that the existing computer
conferencing literature "doesn't seem to apply here on the IBM
networks. Everyone is genteel and professional."

The eighth append to the forum follows up on the same theme in
noting that "the contributors on IBMPC have been remarkable in their
restraint. Not only have most things been kept on a business-like
level, but the responses of the more well-informed to those with other
primary interests has been, in my opinion, noticeably gentle."

The origins of today's formal IBMPC rules

Hence when the administrators of IBMPC substantially revised the formal rules that govern interaction on the
facility in mid-1984, it was not the behavior of IBMPC participants
that drove the effort. It was, rather, the growth of conferencing
within IBM. IBMPC was still the only computer conferencing facility
in the company, but it was becoming clear that there would soon be
other conferencing facilities. Indeed, the forums that would
eventually seed IBMVM and other facilities were already operating on
IBMPC and discussions about the possible opening of IBMVM were
starting.

What was needed, in the judgement of IBMPC's owner, was a set of
formal corporate computer conferencing guidelines that would govern
the conduct of computer conferencing both on IBMPC and on any future
computer conferencing facilities. IBMPC's existing formal rules,
still located in IBMPC MEMO, were probably adequate to the continuing
administration of IBMPC, especially given the range of informal
understandings that had evolved around them. Formal corporate
guidelines, it was felt, would require a more detailed statement of
the rules that made those informal understandings, which had evolved
over several years of running IBMPC, clear.

Hence the 1984 revision of the IBMPC rules was intended, more than
anything, to clarify the existing IBMPC rules so that the owners of
new conferencing facilities could understand them fully while
providing a base from which corporate wide computer conferencing rules
could be drafted. The concern here was that if another computer
conferencing facility was not appropriately managed, the problems of
that facility might also jeopardize IBMPC. Hence, adoption of these
revised formal IBMPC rules by IBM's second computer conference, IBMVM,
was a precondition to the opening of that facility.

Influences on the formal rules

These rules, both as they were initially drafted and as they have
subsequently evolved, are shaped by two major influences. The first
was IBM's existing formal corporate policies and guidelines, which
acted directly in providing impetus for some rules and indirectly in
shaping the formal and informal rules the facility was already
observing. A second influence was found in the informal rules that
already governed the behavior of IBMPC participants.

The nature of these influences is strikingly different. IBM's formal
policies and guidelines provide a formal standard against which IBM
can measure the IBMPC rules. If IBMPC's rules are the metaphorical
equivalent of state laws, the IBM policies and guidelines are federal
laws which supercede the IBMPC rules. Strictly speaking, IBMPC's
rules (both its stated formal rules and its informal rules) must
conform to relevant IBM policies and guidelines.

IBMPC's informal rules, by contrast, represent the IBMPC participant's
general consensus on the kinds of conferencing behavior that maximise
the usefulness of the medium. There are many informal rules guiding
behavior on IBMPC. A number of these rules will be discussed later in
this chapter. Most informal rules stay informal. They are not really
stated as rules anywhere but in the knowledge and behavior of IBMPC
participants. Some such rules are of sufficient importance to the
conduct of computer conferencing on IBMPC that they have been turned
into formal rules.

The difference between the sources is one of control and influence. IBM's
existing policies and guidelines control IBMPC's formal rules by setting a baseline
that the IBMPC rules must conform to. IBMPC's informal rules, by contrast, suggest
constraints on conferencing behavior that, although not specifically addressed
by existing corporate rules, policies, and guidelines, are important to the
success of conferencing. Both sources of rules are important. The IBMPC manager
owner and his team have attempted to insure that rules of IBMPC serve the needs
of IBM, continually updating them where needed to address new corporate requirements
and the ever-evolving changes in the way IBMPC is used. In the end, then, IBMPC
participants can influence the rules, but the owner manager of the facility
has the final responsibility for deciding what rules (both formal and informal)
will be accepted and enforced.

The current IBMPC rules

As written today, the formal rules of IBMPC stipulate that IBMPC's
purpose is to facilitate the management-approved exchange of information
directly or indirectly related to IBM's various personal computer
products. According to these rules, contributions to IBMPC:

must be authored by IBM employees.

must help IBM employees do their job. This rule is rooted
primarily in the need to restrict the use of computer conferencing to
business purposes.

must not disclose IBM Confidential information or the confidential
information of others. This rule is based on IBM's security
guidelines, which restricts the distribution of IBM Confidential
information to those with a specific need to know that information.
It also reflects similar injunctions in IBM's business conduct
guidelines, which specifically enjoin employees from becoming privy to
the proprietary information of other companies.

not contain the material (code or textual) of others. This rule
is intended to protect the copyrights of others. Hence IBMPC
contributors are allowed to discuss such material in their own words,
but are asked to avoid long extracts from the published or unpublished
materials of others.

should, if a new file, be labeled IBM Internal Use Only and have a
clear indication of its business purpose. IBM Internal Use Only is
IBM's lowest level of classifying internal information. Classifying the material
on IBMPC at this level allows free discussion between IBM employees.
Indicating its expected business purpose
allows participants in IBMPC to more
readily understand why the forum exists, and cuts down on the
probability that a new forum's existence will be challenged.

not be contributed with any expectation that IBM will control
subsequent internal use. Because IBMPC is operated as an open
computer conferencing facility within IBM, there is no way of
controlling who sees appends or what they will do based on seeing
them. Because, moreover, selected IBM Internal Use information can be shared
with others (customers, contractors, and others) at management
discretion, one cannot even assume that IBM employees will be the only
readers of one's contributions.

be expressed with accepted business courtesy and good taste. This
rule covers a variety of issues. It specifically prohibits ethnic
slurs, personal insults, and obscenity. It
requests good judgement in dealing with others (don't post someone's
name, address, user ID, or telephone number if there is reason to
think they would object to your doing so). It explicitly discourages
the use of sarcasm and irony (as opposed to humor, which is fine)
because of the likelihood that such remarks will be misinterpreted.
These constraints, particularly the last, reflect the experiences of
IBMPC administrators and the preferences of IBMPC participants.

not include meta-discussions of the appends and/or behavior of
other IBMPC participants unless contributed to a forum that has been
established specifically for such meta-discussion. This rule urges
those who disagree with others to handle those disagreements
privately. If, for instance, a participant feels an append does not
belong on IBMPC, the appropriate response is a private note to the
appender and, perhaps, to the IBMPC administrators. It reflects a
persistent pattern in which personal disagreements over the
appropriateness of a particular line of discussion have overwhelmed
the discussion itself, sometimes making technical forums all but
useless to other participants. The origins of this rule will be
discussed in more detail when meta-forums are discussed later in this
chapter.

not be motivated by the possibility of personal profit. This rule
does not prohibit IBM employees from participating in technical
discussions of their personal software offerings or publications, but
does enjoin them from advertising such offerings.

not originate in a government contract or violate existing
government restrictions. One cannot, for instance, post certain
encryption software on IBMPC because of United States
export regulations.

Measured by their original goals, IBMPC's current formal rules have been judged
to be successful. The rules have been adopted, generally with very few changes,
by nearly every computer conferencing facility within IBM. When, moreover, IBM
issued formal corporate guidelines for computer conferencing within the company
in 1988 (more on this later in the chapter), those guidelines strongly reflected
the formal rules of IBMPC. Indeed, the guidelines were based so heavily on existing
practice that their release had almost no effect on the conduct of computer
conferencing within IBM. The only major change from what existed before was
the formal specification of the agreement contributors of software needed to
agree to when sharing their personal efforts with the rest of the company.

Specialized formal rules

Additional formal rules are associated with some of the more
specialized forums on IBMPC. One such forum, NEWSCLIP, is a
real-time newsletter in which volunteer "reporters" provide abstracts
of current personal computer and IBM business related technical news.
The special rules NEWSCLIP has evolved include:

No discussion. NEWSCLIP is intended to be used as a concise
summary of IBM related news. Inclusion of discussion, particularly of
controversial news items, on the forum would make it "too noisy" for
many individuals whose primary interest is the news itself.

Fair use. It may be OK to directly quote one or two short
paragraphs from a news item, but contributors should not quote
extensively. An abstract of an article's most important points, in
your own words, will generally be of more value in any case.

The evolution of special rules for forums like NEWSCLIP reflects the
desire of many IBMPC participants to adapt IBMPC to special purposes.
It is, for instance, the long standing experience of IBMPC
participants and administrators
that some news items can be expected to provoke intense
debate about such things as company strategy, product quality, and
software development methods. These and other recurring issues
frequently have no "right" answers, but frequently evoke strong
opinions. The forum-specific rules associated with NEWSCLIP exist
primarily to protect the forum from such debate and ensure its
productivity. Most of NEWSCLIP's special rules are intended to
discourage all discussion on the forum; to remove its interactive
quality; to make it effective as a "mass medium".

Even with such rules, NEWSCLIP has proven to be a particularly
difficult experiment. The forum's owner argues, citing personal mail
from forum readers, that the experiment has been a successful one, but
largely because of strong editorial guidance which orients NEWSCLIP to
readers rather than contributors. Even with well publicized rules, a
general consensus of IBMPC participants that the rules are reasonable,
a resultant peer pressure to conform, front end software that tries to
prevent problems before they occur, and a strong editor who deletes
off-topic appends quickly, IBMPC participants persist in occasionally
attempting to start discussions on NEWSCLIP and in complaining about
editorial action when it is taken.

Other elements of the NEWSCLIP experiment have been considerably less successful,
and the owner of NEWSCLIP continues to work with the IBMPC owner and administrators
management to find ways to improve its workings. The experience of NEWSCLIP
raises a question of how the structure of a medium affects the rules that can
be imposed on it. It appears to be the case, at least on the IBMPC computer
conferencing facility, that there are some forum rules which simply cannot be
successful without rigorous enforcement by the forum owner. This may be particularly
true for forums like NEWSCLIP whose operation and rules differ somewhat from
those of other forums. NEWSCLIP looks like a regular forum to anyone encountering
it for the first time, and some level of inadvertent violation of its specialized
rules will probably be inevitable so long as this remains the case.

The Lightning Rod theory

The problems associated with NEWSCLIP are not new. Indeed, they date
back to, at least, SOAPBOX FORUM and its driving hypothesis, the idea
of the lightning rod forum. The underlying theory of the "lightning
rod forum" is a simple one. Forums, like conversations, frequently
are tangential. An odd side statement in an append that is generally
related to the subject matter of the forum may incite an extended and
elaborate side discussion. These side discussions are often
fascinating. They can also be quite deadly to other discussion. When
carried to an extreme, such side discussion has the potential to choke
off the principle discussion of a forum and
to chase away its regular readers.

The "lightning rod" forum exists for the specific purpose of
attracting such discussion away from other forums. The subject matter
for such forums is, in consequence, stated quite broadly. A prototype
statement of the subject matter of such forums might read as follows:
"This forum exists for the discussion of a specified range of IBM
Business Related PC topics which don't really belong on other forums."
The range of topics which are appropriate to such forums are many, and
include narrow topics which don't merit their own forums, transient
topics which are interesting only for a brief time, and new ideas that
may develop to the point where they require a forum of their own, but
aren't sufficiently developed yet.

The idea of the lightning rod forum starts not long after the opening
of SENSITIV FORUM in October, 1984. SENSITIV FORUM was not designed
as a lightning rod forum. It was really an attempt to provide an
avenue for meta-communication; a place where IBMPC participants could
use computer conferencing to talk about the experience of computer
conferencing. Its explicit purpose was and is to provide a forum for
the discussion of miscommunication and misunderstanding in computer
conferencing, which appeared to be a substantial problem at the time.
It was intended to give IBMPC participants, contributors and readers
alike, a chance to talk about how such misunderstanding could be
reduced. SENSITIV FORUM can be regarded as a success. Many useful
meta-discussions of computer conferencing behavior have been held on
SENSITIV FORUM, which will be an object of scrutiny later in this
chapter.

The opening of SENSITIV FORUM had an interesting biproduct. As SENSITIV
FORUM took over part of the responsibility for meta-discussions of
conferencing behavior, similar discussions on other forums (where such
discussion was off topic) declined. Indeed, participants who attempted
to start such discussions were frequently directed (by other
participants) to move their opinion to SENSITIV FORUM. The effect of
the forum was, at least in part, that of a lightning rod, pulling off
topic discussion away from other forums. It was in recognizing this
effect that the "lightning rod" theory was born.

The first explicit attempt to apply the lightning rod theory in a
more general way came with the opening of SOAPBOX FORUM in April,
1985. The mission of SOAPBOX was really quite simple. It was to be
the home of any and all PC-related discussions that didn't belong on
other forums; a designated repository for all sorts of tangential
discussion. It was to draw such tangential discussions away from
other forums, where they would be considered noise.

By some measures, including this basic mission statement, SOAPBOX must
be considered a success. It did, as was intended, become the home of
all sorts of discussions that didn't belong on other forums. It
appeared, moreover, especially in the beginning, that many forums
benefited from a reduced tendency to tangential discussion. Another
benefit was the larger audience it attracted to computer conferencing.

But the benefits of SOAPBOX were balanced by other factors. With its
rather loose topic guidelines, SOAPBOX grew at an (for the time)
unbelievable rate, frequently attracting 100 or more appends in a day.
Volume is not, of course, inherently bad. There are many forums on
IBMPC today that attract more than 100 appends in a day from time to
time without creating any problems at all. Appends (and whole lines
of discussion) to SOAPBOX had a much greater than average tendency,
however, to create problems. These problems seemed to emerge from
several sources:

The forum's purpose, although specifically stating that appends
should be PC related, was interpreted by many as stating that anything
and everything could be discussed on the forum. As a result, many
attempts were made to discuss topics which were neither PC nor
business related.

The forum's name, SOAPBOX, suggested the forum as a place where
people could, in the view of some, blast their opinions about anything
to the IBMPC population at large.

The forum's rapid growth. Some appends, especially the more
extreme ones, proved to be magnets for debate. It was such debate
that, more than anything, accounted for SOAPBOX FORUM's rapid growth.

Each of these sources created problems for the administration of
IBMPC. These factors led to three general problems. First, they
created a substantial workload for the forum owner and IBMPC
administrators, who frequently had to delete appends from the forum.
Because there were many attempts to start discussions that were
neither PC nor business related, there were many such discussions to
clean up. Because, moreover, the more controversial of these
discussions tended to grow quickly, this clean up frequently involved
the deletion of many appends (a lot of work) and a certain amount of
meta-discussion (discussed at length in the next chapter).

Second, the existence of such discussions, even though they were
deleted quickly, led to a perception by some IBMPC participants that
literally anything could be discussed on IBMPC. There was, as a
result, a general spillover of the problems of SOAPBOX FORUM to other
forums. This spillover presented the IBMPC administrators with a
major problem. SOAPBOX FORUM was intended to solve problems by
attracting problematic discussion away from other forums. Its effect,
however, was sometimes the
reverse. It was actually creating new problems on other forums.

In plain terms, SOAPBOX became a lot of work for the administrators of
IBMPC. As the facility grew, SOAPBOX grew. Eventually, especially as
formal rules and reviewing came into play, the forum's problems became
too difficult to manage.
Several attempts to manage the forum failed. SOAPRULE
FORUM discussed and eventually worked out a set of special rules for
the forum. The introduction of these rules, the first specialized
forum rules on IBMPC, did not help, and a stronger solution was sought
in the renaming of the forum (an action which will be discussed in
greater detail).

A shell of SOAPBOX FORUM survives today under the name TEMPMISC FORUM.
The forum can, according to its first entry (the "header" in the
vocabulary of IBMPC) "be used to discuss any topic which relates to
both the IBMPC Personal Computer and IBM business." Discussion is
severely constrained, however, by its central rule: "The conversation
would be on topics of temporary, short term value, since the forum
will be pruned on a regular basis. If the topic is of such value that
it should be preserved, it should be moved to a forum, or a forum may
be started if one does not already exist." Unless volume is
particularly small, appends are usually deleted from TEMPMISC on a
weekly basis.

The effect of the name change and regular pruning has been to
transform TEMPMISC into a fairly slow growing forum that occasionally
gives birth to new forums. It is no longer a "lightning rod" forum
drawing tangential discussion away from other forums so much as a
nursery where topics that don't quite fit anywhere else can get
started.

One should not conclude from the experience of SOAPBOX that the lightning
rod theory is entirely without merit. SOAPBOX and its successors, including
TEMPMISC and NEWSCHAT, have been fairly successful in drawing tangential discussion
away from other forums, much as they were intended to do. It is clear, however,
that lightning rods must be installed carefully, lest they draw more lightning
than they were intended to. Specialized forum rules and considered naming appear
to be key elements of this installation.

Informal rules

There are many aspects of the interaction on IBMPC which are not, and
should not be, the subject of IBMPC's formal rules. Indeed, the broad
majority of rules that constrain behavior on IBMPC remain informal
rules that are enforced by the general consensus of the IBMPC
community. These informal rules are not stated all together in one
place. They do not, in any case, supercede the formal rules of IBM or
IBMPC. They exist, nonetheless, both in the example set by IBMPC
participants and in the peer pressure that is brought to bear on
offenders when violated. Hence:

One should not make the same append to multiple forums. Although
it is no longer the case that anyone reads every forum on IBMPC, many
IBMPC participants read a large number of different forums. Appends
that appear in multiple forums create two problems. They waste both
disk space and the time of the people who read them in several
different places. In many cases, moreover, they create parallel
discussions in several forums. Appenders who make such appends are
likely to receive a great deal of personal mail from other IBMPC
participants, as this sometime offender has learned through personal
experience.

Contributors should exercise reasonable care in making appends
readable. Appenders whose appends contain misspelled words are likely
to receive notes pointing out correct spellings and encouraging the
use of spelling checkers. Appenders whose appends are difficult to
understand are likely to be asked to clarify them. Appenders whose
appends are written entirely in uppercase characters (this is less of
a problem than it used to be) are likely to receive advice on how the
condition can be avoided in the future.

Readers should exercise understanding in criticizing others.
IBMPC has a diverse range of participants, including a fairly large
number of handicapped users. It has been pointed out, from time to
time, that:

blind participants have a hard time with such things as the
correct capitalization of words.

dyslexic users can have a difficult time seeing misspellings in
their appends.

participants who count English as a second language (at least 20
percent of IBMPC user population) can be expected to sometimes mangle
sentences and meanings.

Contributors should provide correct information. Appenders will
often be asked to correct appends when inaccurate information is
provided.

Contributors should identify themselves by signing their appends
with their name. The appender's user ID does uniquely identify
contributors adequately to the sending of private replies. The
consensus of IBMPC participants prefers appends to be personalized
with a one line "signature" which need not be the appender's actual
name. Appenders are generally discouraged from turning such
signatures into multiline "append epilogues" populated with graphics or
quotations. This rule takes particular force when epilogue content is
static and/or unrelated to the append in which it appears.

Contributors should respond reasonably quickly when an append is
explicitly directed to them. The only feedback that exists on IBMPC
is that which appears in the form of a reply to your append. When an
append directed to a specific person or group of people is not
responded to in a reasonable amount of time, contributors are likely
to send private mail pointing out the append. When the
unresponsiveness continues, an append which asks, in effect "Is
anybody listening?" is likely to appear.

Contributors should provide a subject line that summarizes the
content of the append and, if the append responds to another append, a
reference line that indicates what append is being responded to. The
subject line allows users to rapidly find content they are interested
in, and skip content they are not interested in. The reference line
allows users to rapidly scan back to the append which is being replied
to.

Contributors should exercise restraint in quoting from referenced appends.
The consensus of IBMPC users is that the material is already there and readily
accessible. There is a general feeling, moreover, that the "quote/antiquote"
form in which sections of prior appends are lifted intact, prefaced with greater
than signs (">"), and then responded to, often appear confrontational even
when they are not intended to be. The reasons for this informal rule are discussed
at length in the discussion of polar debate.

The above reflects a sampling of some of the better-known informal
rules that constrain behavior on IBMPC. They are, for the most part,
rules that make IBMPC easier to use. Indeed, the primary driving
force in the evolution of many of IBMPC's informal rules is probably
"information overload". Several of the rules outlined above reflect
the desire of IBMPC participants to be as productive as possible in
their reading of forum content. Most informal rules reflect the
consensus of IBMPC users that particular conferencing behaviors are
unproductive for the IBMPC conferencing community.

The evolution of formal and informal rules on IBMPC is, as it is for all human
communication processes, ongoing. IBM continues to refine its perception of
what kinds of things should and should not be discussed on an IBM Internal Use
Only computer conferecing disk. IBMPC participants continue to find forms of
conferencing behavior that, in their assessment, need to be discouraged or encouraged
in the interests of making IBMPC easier to read and more functional.

Murder by meta-discussion

The business of discussing the informal rules of IBMPC is reserved to
a class of forums which called meta-forums, forums dedicated to the
discussion of discussion. There are a number of meta-forums on IBMPC,
including IBMPC FORUM, REVIEWNG FORUM, SENSITIV FORUM, PCTOOLS FORUM,
and others. The intent of these forums is to provide a home for
meta-discussions that would be considered clutter if they occurred on
other forums.

The need for meta-forums arises from a single persistent
characteristic of such meta-discussions: the difficulty people have
in reaching agreement in them. Meta-discussions on IBMPC come in many
flavors. One of the more persistent variants starts with the
question "Why is this append (or forum) on IBMPC?" The question,
when asked directly on IBMPC, most generally expresses a productivity
concern along the lines of "The existence of this type of append (or
forum) makes it harder for people to use IBMPC productively."

The immediate problem in this type of meta-discussion is the
difficulty in reaching agreement on what exactly constitutes a
business-related append or forum. Consider, for instance, a
discussion of the style of interaction in a given game as might be
observed in GAME FORUM. A critic of this discussion might note (and
not without some justification) that game playing is hardly a business
use of a computer. This critic might easily argue that the discussion
cannot possibly help IBM employees do their job and that the
discussion represents a personal use of IBMPC that should not be
allowed under the IBMPC rules.

Defenders of such discussion might counter (and not without some
justification) that understanding the user interface and algorithmic
features of today's game software is an important step toward
understanding the user interface and algorithmic requirements of
tomorrow's business software. Computer games are frequently industry
leading in exploiting the features of competitive hardware and
exploring user interfaces, interaction styles, presentation graphics,
artificial intelligence techniques and other elements of business
software. Hence it can be argued that discussion of computer games is
clearly business related.

The problem is that, however well justified each may be, the
perspectives are extremely difficult to justify to each other.
Winning and losing in this kind of debate does not turn on being right
or wrong. It turns on who gets to make the definition of what is
business related and how they cast the definition. Hence it should
hardly be surprising that this kind of discussion can rapidly escalate
into an intense debate encompassing thousands of lines of text.

This kind of meta-discussion was observed a number of times on the
technical forums of IBMPC in its early years, generally with highly
predictable results:

no action is taken on the issue raised in the meta-discussion.
The opinion of the IBMPC owner and reviewer concerning the
appropriateness of a given append or forum has generally been decided
early in the discussion. Indeed, particularly in cases where a
forum's existence is challenged, it is generally the case that the
issues raised have been considered in detail long before the related
meta-discussion ever gets started. The IBMPC administrators, acting
out of a general belief that participants who understand a given
decision will do a better job of observing it, may participate in such
discussion, especially in its early stages, with the intent of
providing such understanding.

an attempt is made to end the discussion. If the discussion
swings out of control and threatens the regular content of the forum,
the IBMPC reviewer will often ask appenders to end the discussion.
This request is frequently successful, but when it is not ...

the patient dies. The volume of meta-discussion on the forum
overwhelms the usually much smaller volume of technical discussion
had been occurring on the forum. Participants become frustrated with
their inability to hold useful technical discussions on the forum, and
stop reading it.

the question is not resolved. In the best case, discussion ends
with an agreement to disagree. In the worst case, the forum is locked
by the forum owner or IBMPC reviewer, effectively stopping all
discussion in the forum.

The overall effect of the meta-discussion, as described here, is
problematic. If we must count winners and losers, both sides win and
both sides lose. The critic wins and the defender loses when the
forum dies. The defender wins and the critic loses when the
perspective that started the forum is not repudiated. In the end,
however, it is the users of the forum that lose, as large number of
former participants stop participating.

Recognition of this syndrome, which might be referred to as "murder
by meta-discussion", led IBMPC's administrators to formally ban
meta-discussion from IBMPC's technical forums in 1984 with a rule that
has evolved to read:

If you think that a given item should not be allowed on IBMPC, please
SEND MAIL TO THE IBMPC FOLKS, OR TO THE AUTHOR OF THE ITEM, rather
than putting such comments on IBMPC itself. Such meta-discussions
tend to raise arguments, waste disk space, etc., and will be prime
candidates for removal themselves. This also applies to applications
of the rules that seem incorrect; if, for instance, you disagree with
some editing action by a file owner or reviewer, communicate that
disagreement by SENDING MAIL to the editor, *not* by starting a brawl
on IBMPC. All appendable files are subject to being purged of such
meta-discussions at the discretion of the owner or reviewer.

Most meta-discussion on IBMPC never comes close to the extreme described here,
which has much in common with polar debate as described in the
discussion of genre. Where the extreme occurs, the forum owner or IBMPC
reviewer can be expected to close down the discussion. Even when the meta-discussion
is brief and well behaved, however, it is unusual for a meta-discussion to have
any real relavance to the technical discussion that is the focus of most technical
forums. Hence, based only on such formal IBMPC rules as the requirement that
contributions to IBMPC be PC related, business related, and help employees do
their job, there would be good reasons for banning meta-discussion from IBMPC
even if it did not sometimes lead to "murder by meta-discussion."

The meta-forum

Such a ban is not entirely functional, however, and it has proven much
easier to state a ban on meta-discussion than it is to enforce it.
Disagreements still occur. Meta-discussion still ensues,
sometimes on forums and sometimes in private notes with long copy
lists. Eventually an attempt was made to resolve the problem with a
new forum, SENSITIV FORUM, which opens with the following statement:

There seems to be a remarkable tendency for people to take offense, in
one way or another, to things that were never meant to offend. Jokes
seem to be particularly prime candidates for misreading, as are
critiques of hardware and software and, most particularly, critiques
of critiques.

The problem, according to the forum's third append, is the absence of
"the vast amounts of communication that takes place over the human
non-verbal channels: the eye wink, the body stance, the flicker of a
smile. They all modify the spoken word and avoid many of the
difficulties which arise in computer conferences." A solution,
according to this same append, might be found in the use of
"meta-emotion words" like "sigh", "gasp", and "hehe" Subsequent
appends extend the idea and relate it to other media:

in the fifth append a Raleigh, NC appender suggests that an
icon for "tongue in cheek" remarks might be a good solution.
He suggests the use of the icon ":-)" ("Tilt your head 90 degrees to
the left, and see the smile...").

the same suggestion is made minutes later by a Kingston appender
who also recalls that a similar problem was solved in the ham radio
community through adoption of the character sequence "HI" (.... .. in
morse code), that community's long standing convention for indicating
humor.

in the ninth append, a Los Gatos, CA appender suggests multiline
facial icons like the following:

+ +
| (Notice the clown effect from the plus signs)
\_/

two weeks after the forum started, a veteran of World War II
recounted a similar convention used by teletype operators at that
time: "When someone told a joke that risked being misunderstood, he
usually added (HA) at the end. We also express emotion by such words
as (SOB), (GROAN) and ... (GRIN)."

An informal consensus of IBMPC users formed fairly quickly around the
use of single line character icons, in part because, as a Kingston
appender noted, "it takes only a single line of text, and thus is easy
to type in the middle of a note. The :-) icon (and variants including
:-> and :^)) are frequently used on IBMPC as indicators of a (usually
subtle) joke. The :-( icon indicates unhappiness with something. A
wide range of similar icons (most of them with less globally
understood meanings) has also evolved, including ";-)" (a wink), 8-)
(wide eyed glee) and others. Adoption of "meta-emotion icons" as an
informal convention is now widespread on IBMPC and many other
conferencing facilities inside and outside IBM.

One cannot, in fairness, attribute the convention to IBMPC. The appenders
from Raleigh and Kingston who almost simultaneously suggest the convention both
claim to have seen the :-) icon used elsewhere. Still, thanks at least in part
to the discussion on SENSITIV FORUM, the convention took. Iconic substitutes
for nonverbal communication established SENSITIV FORUM as a place where the
informal rules and practices of IBMPC could be negotiated. A variety of iconic
substitutes for nonverbal meaning established on the forum continue to be used
routinely as an indicator of mutually agreed-to meanings. Dictionaries of such
icons (some in the form of programs) now show their agreed on meanings to anyone
who takes the trouble to look, and there is a general consensus that they work.
Insofar as the use of meta-emotion icons acts to clarify intent, it acts to
reduce the probability of misunderstanding.

The ongoing need for meta-forums

If character icons were sufficient to solve all problems of
misunderstanding on IBMPC, SENSITIV FORUM might have been retired as a
repository for "meta-emotion" icons after its first two weeks. If
formal rules were sufficient to solve all the problems of disagreement
on IBMPC, there might have been no need for new rules after the ban on
meta-discussion in technical forums was implemented. If, moreover,
misunderstanding and disagreement were the sum of the problems that
sometimes need to be resolved when people communicate via computer
conferencing, there would be no need on IBMPC for other forums
dedicated to meta-communication concerning the conduct of IBMPC.

Such is not the case. There seem to be many issues related to the
way people communicate on IBMPC that sometimes need to be resolved.
This is, perhaps, as it should be. The process of human communication
is, in part, a continuous renegotiation of the rules of conduct, and
meta-communication is the principle means of such negotiation. The
problems of murder by meta-discussion made a ban of such
meta-discussion a requirement for the reasonable functioning of
technical forums on IBMPC. But the existence of such meta-discussion
to begin with was symptomatic of an ongoing need for meta-discussion.
The meta-forum is the IBMPC computer conferencing facility's solution
to this paradoxical requirement to both restrict and encourage
meta-discussion.

A range of meta-forums

There are a fairly large number of meta-forums on IBMPC (at least 15
at last count). Each attempts to satisfy a subset of the
meta-communication needs of the IBMPC community. The following forums
can be counted among the most important:

IBMPC FORUM, which discusses the general conduct of the IBMPC
computer conferencing facility. It is the original meta-forum on the
IBMPC conferencing facility, and at one time or another has
encompassed the content of all IBMPC meta-forums. With the emergence
of other more specialized meta-forums, its focus has increasingly been
on technical discussion of the actual operation of IBMPC and its
shadows. If an append fails to arrive at a distant shadow within a
reasonable amount of time, the event is likely to be reported to IBMPC
FORUM. If a participant feels that an index of forums is a
particularly important feature that needs to be added to IBMPC, the
request is most likely to be discussed on IBMPC FORUM. If the volume
of incoming material is beginning to overwhelm the IBMPC computer
conferencing facility's ability to handle it, the discussion of
possible solutions is most likely to be held on IBMPC FORUM.

PCTOOLS FORUM, which discusses the general conduct of the PCTOOLS
software distribution facility. PCTOOLS FORUM tends to serve the same
general purpose as IBMPC FORUM, but for PCTOOLS. When, not long ago,
the volume of incoming material actually did overwhelm PCTOOLS'
ability to handle it, solutions were discussed, and eventually
implemented, through discussions on PCTOOLS FORUM.

IBMPC BENEFITS and CUSTOMER BENEFITS, which are dedicated to
collecting descriptions of how discussions on IBMPC has helped the
company and, in the latter forum, the company's ability to satisfy
customers.

CONFEREN FORUM, a repository for discussion of the IBM corporate
computer conferencing guidelines. Discussions on this forum have been
influential in reshaping those guidelines to more closely reflect the
way computer conferencing was being used within IBM.

NEWRULES FORUM, a repository for discussion of the formal rules
of the IBMPC computer conferencing facility. Discussions of proposed
formal rules for the governance of IBMPC are generally conducted here.

REVIEWNG FORUM and SENSITIV FORUM, which are discussed below.

REVIEWNG FORUM

REVIEWNG FORUM is the designated repository for discussions of the
the reviewing actions of the IBMPC administrators. It was started by
John Alvord, then an IBMPC administrator, with the intent of
explaining the reviewing actions taken by the IBMPC administrators.
Its focus is the
actions of the IBMPC conference administrators, and its most
persistent subject matter is the question of what does and does not
belong on the facility. This forum is, in some sense, the designated
home for the kind of problematic meta-discussion that has been
described above, and its subject matter frequently includes
discussions on such issues as:

should the discussion in forum X be allowed?

should forum X exist at all?

what constitutes a business related discussion?

what constitutes a personal computer related discussion?

how should IBMPC participants approach controversial topic X when
it is the subject of business related discussion on IBMPC?

what kinds of actions might an IBMPC administrator take in
response to different kinds of problems?

REVIEWNG FORUM is, with SENSITIV FORUM, one of the two primary
vehicles for discussion of the interpretation of IBMPC's rules and the
actions taken by its administrators.
The meta-discussions on REVIEWNG FORUM are almost always specific to a
particular event. A given action should or should not have been
taken. A given append was deleted and shouldn't have been. A given
append was not deleted and should have been. A given forum ought to
be allowed on IBMPC. A given forum ought not to be allowed on IBMPC.
Its subject matter, in general, is the evolving borderlines of IBMPC's
formal rules. It is concerned, by and large, with matters of how the
IBMPC rules are, and ought to be, interpretated.

As might be expected in such discussion, the content of REVIEWNG
frequently turn on definitions and boundary conditions that will be
discussed in greater detail in a coming chapter. When is
something X rather than not X? What does it mean to be X or not X?
Is a given forum or append X or not X? These are generally
controversial issues that people can never quite agree on, and
discussions on REVIEWNG FORUM sometimes grow quickly. As might be
expected in discussions that turn on definition and interpretation,
the problems discussed are rarely resolved to everyone's satisfaction.

It appears, however, that there is a satisfaction in being able to
express one's outrage, and participants in REVIEWNG FORUM often
express satisfaction with such expression even when the issue in
question is not resolved to their satisfaction. It is often the case,
moreover, that discussions on REVIEWNG FORUM foster better
understandings on the part of both contributor and administrator.
IBMPC's administrators often learn things that they didn't know when a
particular reviewing decision was made, and sometimes reverse
decisions on the basis of that information. Contributors most often
come to understand why a particular decision was made and the
difficulties entailed in making it. This understanding is extremely
important, as it reduces the likelihood that a particular problem will
recur.

SENSITIV FORUM

SENSITIV FORUM is a repository for discussions of the problem of
misreading on IBMPC. It is intended to provide a home for discussions
of how misunderstandings arise on IBMPC, and the things we can do to
reduce such misunderstanding. Most discussions start with a general
declaration about how people should or should not behave in making
appends to IBMPC. The problem, more often than not, is one of
reasonableness:

Does humor have a place on IBMPC and if so, what constitutes
reasonable use? (Appends that exist only to tell a joke probably
don't, but use of humor within otherwise business related appends is
fine).

Is it reasonable to noun-ify verbs (as is done when we refer to
contributions to IBMPC as "appends") or verb-ify nouns?

To what extent is it reasonable to beat "dead horses" (topics that
have been discussed to death previously). How can one sensitively
point out the prior discussion when a "deceased equine" is whipped
anew?

How tolerant should participants be of people who misspell words
and mangle sentences in their appends? How tolerant should we be of
people who judge appends by spelling and grammar rather than content?

Is computer conferencing more a written medium or a conversational
medium? One's choice makes a difference in how one views spelling,
grammar, and other issues.

Is an obscenity less obscene when it is disguised ('*' substituted
for vowels)?

To what extent should we expect appenders who modify appends to
explicitly indicate what in the append has changed?

To what extent should we expect appends that reply to other
appends to explicitly reference those appends?

How reasonable is it to expect a reply to an append that asks a
question?

Informal rules and meta-forums

SENSITIV FORUM is similar to REVIEWNG FORUM in many ways.
Both attract complaints about the way IBMPC operates and
discussions about how it might operate better. Both act as focal
points for discussions of the rules that govern or should
govern behavior on IBMPC. If there is a difference between the
forums, it is the kind of rules that are discussed.

REVIEWNG FORUM's major concern is the interpretation and application
of IBMPC's formal rules.
Its discussions focus on boundary conditions, grey areas,
and matters of definition. SENSITIV FORUM, by contrast, is concerned
mostly with IBMPC's informal rules. Its appends are mostly concerned
with the reasonableness of conference behavior which is not covered by
IBMPC's formal rules. Discussions on SENSITIV FORUM will, like those
on REVIEWNG FORUM, often turn on questions of definition, but there is
less expectation that an IBMPC administrator will eventually designate
a given definitional position as "correct".

If there is a dominant pattern to SENSITIV FORUM discussions, it is
that of an appeal to reason. An appender will present some persistent
conference behavior that they find abhorrent or frustrating. Other
appenders will discuss the behavior. Those that disagree will most
frequently point out conditions that make the frustrating behavior
understandable and even acceptable. Those that agree (on either side)
work to refine the argument in the face of criticism. While there is
rarely a clear cut closure on the discussion (an append stating that
"I guess we all agree that ..."), discussion most often ends in one of
three ways:

a general consensus that a given behavior is probably a good or
bad thing. Where it exists, this consensus usually exists as a
series of uncontested summary appends for one position or the other.
It can often be reasonably presupposed that this condition means that
an informal rule exists. The best evidence of such a consensus is
change in behavior on IBMPC. Desirable behaviors may be more
apparent. Undesirable behaviors may subside. Particularly in the
latter case, it may be possible to directly or indirectly observe
informal enforcement actions, including private notes to apparent
violators and modifications to appends that appear to violate the
apparent consensus.

a general appeal for tolerance. Many discussions on SENSITIV
FORUM end with one or more uncontested appends that point out, as does
this October 1984 excerpt from SENSITIV FORUM, that "if something in a
forum is irritating, it could be that the writer is abrasive. It
could also be that the reader is sensitive. Look at both
possibilities before passing judgement."

discussion ends in a draw through the intervention of a reviewer
or a weekend. There are a number of interactions on SENSITIV FORUM
which end without any apparent consensus. This kind of discussion
most often ends when a weekend away from work (and conferencing)
succeeds in cooling emotions. Sometimes more emphatic action is
required, as was the case when a May, 1987 discussion over grammar and
spelling attracted the following append by an IBMPC administrator:

This is a plea for a truce, a de-escalation of the hostilities
that seem to be close to bringing this forum and its participants
to the brink of warfare. While I understand that there are
at least two camps in this discussion, I do not see that these
must be ARMED camps. How about less slings and arrows?

The functionality of meta-forums

The experience of meta-forums on IBMPC has been a positive one.
Meta-discussions that could once be expected to destroy otherwise
productive forums are now isolated to a separate place. The resulting
discussion can be every bit as intense as it once was on regular
forums, but the patient no longer dies (at least not without explicit
action on the part of the IBMPC administrators). The meta-discussion
now proceeds in parallel with whatever other discussion provoked it,
and without disrupting the flow of subsequent appends.

With discussion isolated to a repository of such discussion, there is
a much greater tendency to apply the lessons of prior
meta-discussions. Hence one frequently sees back references to prior
discussions or cross-references to discussions on other meta-forums,
which may well provide a useful precedent for guiding discussion.
Used in this way, the meta-forums act, in some sense, as a repository
of IBMPC's informal rule-making process. Indeed, when one takes the
trouble to look, one can frequently find the meta-forum discussion
that led to a given informal rule.

The meta-forum is not, of course, the only means by which people
meta-communicate on IBMPC. Meta-emotion icons are used to clarify the
intent of messages. Private notes are used to apply peer pressure and
clarify meanings. Feelings about what others have said will
frequently (and often unintentionally) spill over into appends. It
may well be that interaction on meta-forums represent only a small
fraction of the meta-communication that occurs on and around IBMPC.

Still, the meta-forum represents a rather unique distillation of a key
element of the normal process of human communication. The assertion
that communication acts are governed by mutually negotiated informal
rules is a common one in the literature of human communication. The
existence of such informal rules is, however, usually argued from
their effects rather than from observation of the process of their
negotiation. The process of the meta-forum is the process of
negotiating the rules of everyday interaction. It provides a unique
means by which the IBMPC community can and does interact to
determine its own informal rules of conduct.

Rules and Media

The overt negotiation of rules in written computer conferencing
meta-discussion is probably fairly unusual among media. Most
meta-communication is tacit, expressed through nonverbal
give-and-take. The hazards of meta-communication ("murder by
meta-discussion") in computer conferencing may be unique to the
medium. Its combination of a face-to-face interaction style with a
mass media audience creates a potential for clearly individual, yet
rapidly accumulating, expression that may allow discussions to go out of control
more easily. The structures of meta-communication (the meta-forum)
once appeared to be unique to the IBMPC computer conferencing
facility. Meta-forums can now be found on most of IBM's larger
conferencing facilities, and the practice can also be observed on
other company's in-house computer conferencing systems. Still,
while overt meta-communication is hardly exceptional on computer
conferencing facilities, meta-forums remain something of an exception
on the computer conferencing landscape.

The process of rules formation that can be observed on almost any computer
conferencing facility is hardly exceptional. The conduct of human interaction
requires that we adapt our communication behavior to meet the needs of others.
It is through the negotiation of rules, whether done tacitly or overtly, that
we agree on what kinds of behavior are acceptable. The negotiation of informal
rules on IBMPC, as observed in its meta-forums, may be more obvious than it
is in other media, but the general processes by which they evolve are probably
the same on all media, whether mass or interpersonal.